Animation in applications such as video games and simulators is generated by displaying on a video display a series of digitized video images or cells while a CPU is executing commands from a software program that accompanies the cells. A script, which defines the display order of the cells and the operation sequence of their associated software commands, is created by a programmer to achieve the desired action of the animated characters on the video display. Most video games and simulators involving action figures have limited sequences of video cells that may be displayed to the player. To increase the variety of the displayed video, the sequences are shown at different speeds at different times during the video game. Generally, the video screen is a raster-type display which is updated 60 times a second or stated another way, at 60 Hz.
A typical video game is programmed to display each cell in a sequence of video cells for the same integral number of update periods. For example, an animation sequence containing 30 frames or cells is programmed to be displayed at a rate of four update periods per cell. In this case, the sequence is displayed for 120 update periods or 2 seconds. The same sequence is programmed to be displayed at a later time for two update periods per cell or one second. This results in the character in the later animation sequence moving more quickly than in the previous sequence. However, this method of programming the display time of an animation sequence is limited to using the same number of update periods for each video cell in the sequence and the actions of the animated character are uniformly sped up or slowed down.